I'm well aware of the politics at work here, and why Phase II can't push as it should to retrieve it's stolen property.
I just wanted to know if any progress had been made in retrieving it.
Is that not allowed?
Sure it's allowed!
The short answer is that after working the issue, I have just recently received a 2 Terabyte hard drive that would appear to contain the remaining "Kitumba" footage and Final Cut Pro "timelines." So I think we have everything now and we can start working on our edit of "Kitumba"--if we think it's still worth it at this point, now that our thunder has been stolen a bit.
We are torn between wanting to let our fans know that the issue would seem to be resolved and not wanting to share something that is mostly just a private business concern. But we understand that our fans have a vested interest in the matter, so this serves to let everyone know that this wayward footage would appear to now have been recovered.
At the moment, we have our hands full with our next shoot--coming up in a couple of weeks. This episode, "Bread and Savagery," will be a challenge for a variety of technical reasons, so we are focused on that currently. But when we come up for air, we'll get back to the post-production of "Kitumba" and see where we stand--and what are next steps might be.
Lastly, if word isn't out yet, we are planning a "re-launch" of our series a bit later this year. There are a few interesting changes in store. So, in light of these planned changes to our series, we'd probably have to take another look at (and make some changes to) the "Kitumba" edit anyway. And, for that matter, we also will need to take a look at where we stand regarding "The Protracted Man" (f.k.a. "Origins") and "Mind-Sifter." The edits of those furture episodes might need to be reworked a bit in light of our "re-launch" changes.
Lastly (and it might land me in hot water with my boss), there needs to be some grudging thanks to the parties who provided the last of the "Kitumba" footage to us. When everyone gets entrenched in their positions and everything is at an impasse, it sometimes takes courage to relent and to compromise. So their willingness to compromise and to hand over the last of the footage with absolutley nothing in return has earned them my gratitude and respect. (I know: "That and a dime....")
There may yet be some more formal announcement from us about the successful resolution to this matter--something more formal that just a silly post from me on TrekBBS. (Like I said above, we're not sure how big a deal we should be making about this.)
Thanks everyone for your interest in "Kitumba"--and in our
Star Trek Phase II production in general.
